Chris Haney, co-creator of board game Trivial Pursuit, dies at 59 Chris Haney, 59 Chris Haney, co-creator of board game Trivial Pursuit, dies at 59 Chris Haney, left, and Scott Abbott came up with the idea for the board game in 1979. By the time Hasbro bought the rights to the game in 2008, 100 million copies of Trivial Pursuit had been sold. (Associated Press/canadian Press File) By Elaine Woo Thursday, June 3, 2010 Chris Haney, a former Canadian journalist whose fascination with entertaining, barely useful tidbits of information led him to co-create the bestselling board game Trivial Pursuit, died May 31 at a Toronto hospital. He was 59. He had kidney and circulatory problems, said Scott Abbott, who created the game with Haney more than 30 years ago and watched it become a cultural phenomenon across North America and around the world. "I was the architect and Chris was the general contractor.

I invented it and he made it happen," Abbott said of the partnership that resulted in more than 100 million copies of Trivial Pursuit being sold in 33 countries by the time Hasbro bought the rights to the game for $80 million in 2008. Decades before data hounds had Google, there was Trivial Pursuit, a $29.99 board game that elevated the acquisition of a wide range of arcane knowledge to a coveted social skill. Players answered questions in six broad categories to collect six colored pie wedges to win. The game rewarded people who knew such factoids as what part of an elephant has 100,000 muscles, what was Elvis Presley's highest-grossing movie and who invented the flush toilet. Although trivia games and books were not new, Trivial Pursuit "spread like a virus all over the culture," said pop culture historian Robert Thompson, who attributed the game's enormous popularity to a critical mass of college-educated people that began building after World War II. Mr. Haney never had the appearance of a striver. He was often described in articles as somewhat scraggly looking, usually dressed in jeans with holes burned from cigarettes.

He was more than 6 feet tall, with a handlebar moustache he was fond of twirling. Born Aug. 9, 1950, in Welland, Ontario, Mr. Haney often described himself as a beer-swilling high school dropout whose biggest mistake was quitting school at 17. "I should have done it when I was 12," he said in interviews. When he dropped out, his father, a radio news reader, insisted he get a job and helped him find one in the photo department at the Canadian Press wire service. He met Abbott, a sportswriter for the Canadian Press, in 1975 when he was assigned to the Montreal bureau to organize photo coverage of the 1976 Olympics. They became close friends and housemates. In 1979, Mr. Haney was married to his first wife, Sarah Crandall, and working for the Montreal Gazette when he and Abbott hit on the idea that would change their lives. It was a Saturday night before Christmas, and Mr. Haney and his wife had returned from grocery shopping with a surprise for Abbott: a Scrabble set. But Mr.

Haney groused about paying what he believed was an inflated price -- $11 -- for the board game. "He said, 'There must be a lot of money in games. Why don't we invent one?' " Abbott recalled in an interview Tuesday. "Then he said, 'What should it be about?' I said, 'Trivia.' " They worked out the basic details in 45 minutes. Mr. Haney suggested calling the game Trivia Pursuit, but his wife suggested a crucial tweak: adding an L to make it Trivial Pursuit. CONTINUED 1 Chris Haney - Telegraph Culture Obituaries Chris Haney Chris Haney, who died on May 31 aged 59, was the co-creator of the general knowledge board game Trivial Pursuit, which Time magazine called “the biggest phenomenon in game history” with some 88 million sets sold worldwide. Photo: SYGMA Comments Haney was working as a photojournalist for the Montreal Gazette in 1979 when he collaborated with Scott Abbott, a Canadian Press sports reporter, to invent Trivial Pursuit. While both were convinced that their new game would sell, they had no idea just how successful it would become.

When it appeared in the shops in late 1981, sales were slow. But word spread, the game took off, and in 2008 Haney and Abbott sold the rights to the toy giant Hasbro for $80 million. A larger-than-life figure, always known as “Horn”, Haney turned a voracious appetite for facts into one of the biggest moneymakers in the history of board games. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, “Trivial Pursuit is a money machine.” Christopher Haney was born at Welland, Ontario, on August 9 1950, and went to high school in Hamilton, but he did not thrive there and left when he was in the 12th grade. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made,” he joked. “I should have done it in Grade 10.” After a stint with the Canadian Press news agency he worked as a picture editor at the Montreal Gazette and met Abbott in December 1975 after being assigned to help with coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal.

Related Articles Victor Watson, businessman 08 Mar 2015 The two developed their idea after work on December 15 1979 while playing a game of Scrabble in a bar and finding that some of the letters were missing. Over a few beers, and scribbling on the back of some paper napkins, they sketched out a game based on questions of trivia, with a six-spoked circular board and six question categories: art and literature; history; science and nature; entertainment; geography; sport and leisure. The following year Haney resigned his job and, with his wife and child, travelled to Spain, spending the autumn and winter of 1980 researching 6,000 questions across the categories. In the meantime, with his brother John, Scott Abbott, and a lawyer called Ed Werner, he set about raising $75,000 in capital to market the game. The foursome appealed to friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Some turned them down flat — but eventually 34 people each put up $1,000.

The first investor was one of Haney’s high school friends, who earned a return of some $50,000 in the first two years alone. Although the game went on sale in 1981 Haney said it was two years before they “saw a nickel” for the idea. Initially 1,100 copies of the game went on sale in Canada for $15. The company Haney and Abbott formed to market the game, Horn Abbott, lost money on each of these initial sets, which cost $75 to make. Because none of the big games manufacturers was interested, Haney and his cohorts sold the game mainly via mail order. After exhausting his savings, he was stricken with anxiety attacks, and spent some time in rehab. In February 1982 Haney and his team showed Trivial Pursuit at the New York Toy Fair, but found themselves allocated a room at the far end of a remote corridor; most of the people passing by were actually looking for the lavatory. But when the game was featured on a television chat show, with the host reading out questions to the guests, sales picked up.

Originally developed under the name Six Thousand Questions, Trivial Pursuit now sells in more than 50 countries and 20 languages all over the world. Haney became a multi-millionaire, and regularly took the Queen Mary II across the Atlantic to Europe — and especially his favourite country, Spain — because he was afraid of flying. In 1984 and again in 1994 lawsuits were filed against the distributors of Trivial Pursuit. One man claimed the creators had lifted questions from his trivia books. Another, who claimed he had been hitchhiking when Haney picked him up, said he had outlined his idea for a game and later realised that Haney had hijacked it. Both cases were thrown out, one by the US Supreme Court. Chris Haney is survived by his wife, Hiam, as well as his first wife, Sarah, and their three children. Chris Haney dies at 59; co-creator of Trivial Pursuit board game - latimes Chris Haney dies at 59; co-creator of Trivial Pursuit board game The high school dropout helped invent the test-your-knowledge game that became a worldwide sensation.

June 02, 2010 |By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times In this file photo, Chris Haney, left, and Scott Abbott play the game they… (Canadian Press ) Chris Haney, a former Canadian journalist whose fascination with entertaining, barely useful tidbits of information led him to co-create the bestselling board game Trivial Pursuit, died Monday in Toronto. He was 59. He had been in poor health the last two years with kidney and circulatory problems, said Scott Abbott, who created the game with Haney more than 30 years ago and watched it become a cultural phenomenon across North America and around the world. "I was the architect and Chris was the general contractor. I invented it and he made it happen," Abbott said of the partnership that resulted in more than 100 million copies being sold in 33 countries by the time Hasbro bought the rights to the game for $80 million in 2008. Decades before data hounds had Google, there was Trivial Pursuit , a $29.99 board game that elevated the acquisition of a wide range of arcane knowledge to a coveted social skill.

Players answered questions in six broad categories to collect six colored pie wedges to win. The game rewarded people who knew such factoids as what part of an elephant has 100,000 muscles, what was Elvis Presley's highest-grossing movie and who invented the flush toilet. Although trivia games and books were not new, Trivial Pursuit "spread like a virus all over the culture," said Syracuse University pop culture expert Robert Thompson, who attributed the game's enormous popularity to a critical mass of college-educated people that began building after World War II. "By the time we get to the late 1970s, early 1980s," Thompson said Tuesday, "we've got a lot of people in this country with a whole lot of information flowing in their heads .... Trivial Pursuit was a way to make some of that information useful. At least you could get a piece of the pie and impress your friends." For his part, Haney never had the appearance of a striver. He was often described in articles as somewhat scraggly looking, usually dressed in jeans that might have burn holes from the cigarettes he smoked.

He was more than 6 feet tall, with a handlebar moustache he was fond of twirling. Born Aug. 9, 1950, in Welland, Ontario, he often described himself as a beer-swilling high school dropout whose biggest mistake was quitting school at 17. "I should have done it when I was 12," he said in interviews. When he dropped out, his father, a radio news reader, insisted he get a job and helped him find one in the photo department at the Canadian Press wire service. Haney worked at various bureaus of the service from the late 1960s through the late '70s. He met Abbott, a sports writer for the Canadian Press, in 1975 when he was assigned to the Montreal bureau to organize photo coverage of the 1976 Olympics. They became close friends and housemates. In 1979, Haney was married to his first wife, Sarah, and working for the Montreal Gazette when he and Abbott hit on the idea that would change their lives. It was a Saturday night before Christmas, and Haney and his wife had returned from grocery shopping with a surprise for Abbott: a Scrabble set.

But Haney groused about paying what he believed was an inflated price — $11 — for the board game. "He said, 'There must be a lot of money in games. Why don't we invent one?' " Abbott recalled in an interview Tuesday. "Then he said, 'What should it be about?' I said, 'Trivia.' " Abbott then sat down with pencil and paper and worked out the basic details in 45 minutes. Haney suggested calling the game Trivia Pursuit, but Sarah suggested a crucial tweak: adding an L to make it Trivial Pursuit. "That made it," Abbott said. He and Haney didn't quit their day jobs just yet, however. They recruited two partners, Haney's brother, John, and a lawyer friend, Ed Werner, and Haney and his brother spent the next two years writing the trivia questions — 6,000 of them. The partners tested the game on friends and were convinced that it would sell, but potential marketers were dubious. A common criticism was that people wouldn't buy a game that made them feel stupid.

In 1980, with an infant son to support and a second child on the way, Haney quit his job at the Gazette to work full time on the game. He and his partners raised $40,000 by selling shares to 32 people. His personal finances became so shaky, however, that he was redeeming empty beer bottles for cash. He suffered a nervous breakdown. But after the first 1,000 games sold out, orders began to pour in. Encouraged by the reception for the Genus Edition, as the first set was called, Haney began to work on a second edition focused on the movies, called the Silver Screen Edition. In 1981 an American company, Selchow & Richter, offered a contract with a generous advance on royalties and a plan for wide-scale distribution in the United States. The popularity of Trivial Pursuit snowballed, and in 1984 more than 20 million sets were purchased in North America. The game's success allowed Haney to indulge his passion for golf.

With Abbott, he built Devil's Pulpit and Devil's Paintbrush in Ontario; they were named the best new golf courses in 1991 and 1992, respectively, by Golf Digest magazine. Until his health began to deteriorate, Haney played golf six days a week, Abbott said. He spent winters in Marbella, Spain, traveling there by sea because he was averse to flying. In addition to his brother, Haney is survived by his second wife, Haim; a daughter, Shelagh; two sons, John and Thomas; and a sister, Mary. Co-creator of Trivial Pursuit dies - today > news - TODAY.com + - MONTREAL — Chris Haney, a co-creator of the popular Trivial Pursuit board game, died Monday at the age of 59. Scott Abbott, who created Trivial Pursuit with Haney, said Haney died in a Toronto hospital after a long illness. Haney worked for The Canadian Press and the Montreal Gazette newspaper as a photo editor before going into the board game business. He teamed up with Abbott, a Canadian Press sports reporter, in 1979 to invent Trivial Pursuit.

"He was one of the most knowledgeable, widely read people I've encountered," Abbott said of his friend, who was a voracious newspaper reader. "You could always discuss the affairs of the day." Abbott said he and Haney always had a "blind faith" that the game would be successful if it got to market, but they no idea just how wildly successful it would become. Released in 1982, it took off after a slow start and the duo sold the rights to toy giant Hasbro in 2008 for US$80 million. "We didn't realize it would transcend games players and become, with the Cabbage Patch Kids, what Time magazine in 1984 called an American social phenomenon," said Abbott. Haney is survived by his wife, as well as his first wife, and three grown children. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

People.com 4/10/2015 3:58:42 PM +00:00 2015-04-10T15:58:42 share 4/10/2015 5:54:50 PM +00:00 2015-04-10T17:54:50 share 4/10/2015 1:32:31 PM +00:00 2015-04-10T13:32:31 share 4/10/2015 5:29:18 PM +00:00 2015-04-10T17:29:18 share 4/10/2015 6:44:22 PM +00:00 2015-04-10T18:44:22 share Chris Haney, an Inventor of Trivial Pursuit, Dies at 59 - The New York Times The

 New York Times Business Day |Chris Haney, an Inventor of Trivial Pursuit, Dies at 59 Search Question: How did Chris Haney, an inventor of the board game Trivial Pursuit , think of himself?

Answer: As a rock star. “It’s like we became rock stars,” he told Maclean’s magazine in 1993, repeating a comment he had made in several interviews. “People still shake in their boots when they meet us.” And why not? Mr. Haney, a rumpled Canadian high school dropout, joined with a fellow journeyman journalist, Scott Abbott, to create a phenomenon — a board game that tests a player’s grasp of wickedly inconsequential trivia. In the 1980s, Trivial Pursuit was outselling Monopoly. By the time Mr. Haney died in Toronto on Monday at 59, more than 100 million copies of the game had been sold in as many as 26 countries and in at least 17 languages, with estimated sales of well over $1 billion. And Mr. Haney, who had battled through financial hardship in pursuit of his dream, wound up owning golf courses, vineyards and racehorses. Hasbro, which bought the intellectual rights to Trivial Pursuit for $80 million in 2008, confirmed Mr. Haney’s death.

The company did not give a cause, except to say that he had suffered from a long illness. Advertisement The original Trivial Pursuit, introduced in 1981, involved answering 6,000 trivia questions on 1,000 cards, coded by categories like history and entertainment. (They have been updated and modified many times since, and many variations of the game have been introduced.) Original questions could be tough: “Who was Howdy Doody’s twin brother?” (Double Doody.) Or easy: “What chemical is used to keep swimming pools clean?” (Chlorine.) Mr. Haney especially liked quirky questions: “What’s the largest diamond in the world?” (A baseball diamond.) The game was a hit with baby boomers in particular and has always tended to play on their nostalgia. Indeed, Time magazine reported that the cast of “The Big Chill,” the 1983 movie about a reunion of friends from the 1960s, loved to play Trivial Pursuit on the set. Photo Chris Haney, left, with Scott Abbott. The two men created Trivial Pursuit. Credit The Canadian Press, via Associated Press Christopher Haney was born in Welland, Ontario.

(The exact date is uncertain, but references agree on his age, 59.) He dropped out of high school at 17 and later said that he regretted it — that he should have dropped out at 12. His father worked for a news agency, The Canadian Press, and got him a job there as a copy boy. He later took over its photo desks in Ottawa and Montreal, then moved to The Montreal Gazette as a picture editor. On the evening of Dec. 15, 1979, Mr. Haney and Mr. Abbott, who was then a sportswriter for The Canadian Press, were playing Scrabble. Mr. Haney wondered aloud whether the two of them could invent a game as good. Contrary to legend, they were neither in a tavern nor on their 18th round of beers. They were actually at Mr. Haney’s home in Montreal and on their first beers when Mr. Haney suggested a game based on trivia, they told The Hamilton Spectator in 1993. By the time Mr. Haney was opening the refrigerator to fetch their second beers, they were already mentally designing the board.

Their next step was to go to a Montreal toy fair and present themselves as a reporter-photographer team. They peppered game experts with questions and came away with what Mr. Haney called “$10,000 worth of information.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story They then brought in Mr. Haney’s brother John, who in turn brought in a friend, a fellow hockey enthusiast. But they needed more investors and turned to friends in their newsrooms. One problem, according to The Globe and Mail of Canada, was that people had heard they were “con artists.” As an example, the newspaper pointed to a chain letter the men had started that proved profitable for the originators but not to those down the line. They nonetheless succeeded in raising $40,000 from 32 investors. Mr. Haney’s mother was not among them, however: he had talked her out of investing for fear she would lose her money. On a trip to Spain, Mr. Haney worked 16-hour days writing questions, by his account, provoking some investors to suggest that they were paying for his vacation. An unemployed artist helped with the design.

But things did not immediately work out: buyers at toy fairs in Montreal and New York were cool to the concept. Mr. Haney began to have panic attacks, he told The Globe and Mail. But after a manufacturer was found and the game was released in Canada, word-of-mouth support began to build. Then the game took off, racking up nearly $800 million in sales in 1984. An estimated one in five American households bought the game, with Selchow & Righter, the makers of Parcheesi and Scrabble, owning the American license at the height of the game’s popularity in the mid-’80s. Ownership then bounced from company to company, including Parker Brothers, until Hasbro bought the rights in 2008. Mr. Haney’s marriage to his first wife, Sarah, ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife, Hiam Haney; his sons, John and Thomas; his daughter, Shelagh; and a brother and a sister. Mr. Haney fought and won a 13-year legal battle against a man who said he had given him the idea for Trivial Pursuit when Mr. Haney picked him up hitchhiking.

He won another suit against an author who claimed that Mr. Haney had taken questions from his books, something Mr. Haney readily acknowledged. The judge’s reasoning: You can’t steal trivia. A version of this article appears in print on June 3, 2010, on Page A33 of the New York edition with the headline: Chris Haney, an Inventor of Trivial Pursuit, Dies at 59. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Articles about Chris Haney - latimes Chris Haney dies at 59; co-creator of Trivial Pursuit board game June 2, 2010 | By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times Chris Haney, a former Canadian journalist whose fascination with entertaining, barely useful tidbits of information led him to co-create the bestselling board game Trivial Pursuit, died Monday in Toronto. He was 59. He had been in poor health the last two years with kidney and circulatory problems, said Scott Abbott, who created the game with Haney more than 30 years ago and watched it become a cultural phenomenon across North America and around the world. "I was the architect and Chris was the general contractor.

Advertisement PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS : Rags-to-Riches Game Inventors See Nothing Trivial About Horses September 16, 1989 | BILL CHRISTINE, Times Staff Writer It has been almost 10 years since a rainy-day idea for a board game turned into Trivial Pursuit. The game has sold about 76 million copies and is available in 22 languages in 32 countries. Of the family and friends who originally invested in the phenomenon, several have become millionaires, including Scott Abbott, a wire-service copyboy from Montreal who borrowed a few thousand dollars from his mother to participate, and John Haney. And what are Abbott and Haney doing with their money? SPORTS PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS : Rags-to-Riches Game Inventors See Nothing Trivial About Horses September 16, 1989 | BILL CHRISTINE, Times Staff Writer It has been almost 10 years since a rainy-day idea for a board game turned into Trivial Pursuit. The game has sold about 76 million copies and is available in 22 languages in 32 countries.

Of the family and friends who originally invested in the phenomenon, several have become millionaires, including Scott Abbott, a wire-service copyboy from Montreal who borrowed a few thousand dollars from his mother to participate, and John Haney. And what are Abbott and Haney doing with their money? SPORTS BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES : Royals, Expos Trade Minor Leaguers August 30, 1992 | Associated Press The Kansas City Royals obtained pitchers Chris Haney and Bill Sampen from the Montreal Expos on Saturday in exchange for third baseman Sean Berry and pitcher Archie Corbin. All four players were in the minor leagues, but Haney was penciled in to start Monday night's home game against the Texas Rangers. "Haney will start for sure," Royal Manager Hal McRae said. "He's a finesse-type of left-hander, a typical left-hander.

He changes speeds and has good control." SPORTS BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJORS : Outpatient Care Begun by Gooden July 16, 1994 | Associated Press Dwight Gooden, the New York Met pitcher who was suspended 60 days on June 28 by Major League Baseball for violating his drug-therapy program, has returned to the New York City area to start outpatient care. The sessions are part of Gooden's continuing after-care program, which is being monitored by Major League Baseball. Details of the program weren't disclosed. SPORTS Royals Finally Win at Home May 30, 1998 | From Associated Press Jeff King had five RBIs and a bases-loaded triple as Kansas City defeated Oakland, 5-3, Friday night to end a six-game home losing streak and stretch the Royals' overall winning streak to four--their longest since September 1996. Kansas City came into the game with a major league-worst 6-18 home record, and were winless at Kauffman Stadium since May 7. "It's one of those things that are hard to explain in baseball," King said. "We could have just been trying too hard at home.

SPORTS Mets Pull Nomo From Rotation September 13, 1998 | Associated Press The New York Mets have pulled Hideo Nomo out of their starting rotation and moved Masato Yoshii's next start back to Monday. In his last outing on Tuesday at Philadelphia, Nomo gave up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings of a 16-4 loss. The Mets also activated Todd Hundley from the 15-day disabled list. * Former Atlanta Brave reliever Larry Bradford died after suffering a heart attack Friday night at Turner Field. Bradford pitched for the Braves in 1977 and then from 1979 through 1981. SPORTS Orioles' Dugout Roof Collapses September 4, 1997 | Associated Press A portion of the wooden roof over the Baltimore Orioles' dugout collapsed during Wednesday night's game against the Florida Marlins at Pro Player Stadium in Miami. No one was seriously hurt. Two members of the Marlins' Bleacher Brigade, which entertains fans between innings, were on the roof launching T-shirts to the crowd when it collapsed. A 30-foot chunk of the roof fell onto the dugout steps in the third inning.

SPORTS Gonzalez Has 2 Homers, 5 RBIs July 22, 1998 | From Associated Press Juan Gonzalez homered twice and drove in five runs Tuesday night, increasing his major league-leading total to 110 runs batted in, and the Rangers hit a season-high six homers in a 15-5 rout of the Kansas City Royals. Gonzalez, who has nine RBIs in his last three games after going nine games without one, hit a solo homer in the second inning and a three-run shot in the sixth that gave the Rangers a 15-4 lead. He also had an RBI single in the Rangers' nine-run first inning. SPORTS Griffey Pays Tribute to Robinson April 16, 1997 Ken Griffey Jr. of the Seattle Mariners honored Jackie Robinson on Tuesday night by wearing the late Hall of Famer's No. 42 instead of his usual No. 24 in a game against Cleveland. Griffey switched numbers for the 50th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut. The Mariners center fielder also wore his black stockings almost knee-length in the manner that Robinson wore them for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Growing Up in Verdun ,Montreal & Information: Ex Gazette photo editor dies @59 ,What was his Name ? THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply. Tuesday, June 1, 2010 Ex Gazette photo editor dies @59 ,What was his Name ? This topic heading could very well be a future question on the Trivial Pursuit Board Game............Chris Haney ,who co-invented the very popular board game,& made himself millions has died at the age of 59. That's young,at least he got to enjoy his wealth for a bunch of years.but still checked out rather early: Chris Haney, the Canadian co-creator of the hit board game Trivial Pursuit, died yesterday in a Toronto hospital. He was 59.

Former colleagues of Haney, who was a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette when he invented the quiz game with fellow journalist Scott Abbott, were saddened to learn of his death. Haney and Abbott came up with the concept for the immensely popular game in December 1979, when they were toiling over a game of Scrabble. They wanted to create something as wide-reaching as the classic word game, and within an hour Haney and Abbott had a rough framework for Trivial Pursuit - including categories and the circular board - scrawled out on paper placemats. Since then, millions of copies have been sold around the world. Gazette photographer John Mahoney, who worked under Haney when he started at the newspaper, said he was a brilliant, self-taught mind with a desire to live life to the fullest. "He had a cutting wit, which kept some people at bay, but when you got to know him, he was a guy that was very loyal," Mahoney said. "He was a guy who never wanted to work 9 to 5.

He believed the best education was travel and invented Trivial Pursuit with the hope it would bring in enough money every year that he could live on the beach in Spain and travel through Europe." It certainly did. Mahoney said Haney had a fear of flying and would travel by cruise ship to Spain each winter, where he counted actor Sean Connery among his neighbours. Haney would then return to Canada by ship in the spring, Mahoney said. When he wasn't overseas, Haney lived near Caledon, northwest of Toronto. Before his success with the board game, Haney also excelled at his full-time job, said Mahoney, who last spoke with Haney about two years ago. Haney said success didn't change him much, and said he still rolled his own cigarettes, Mahoney added. Themed versions of Haney's immensely popular quiz game have also surfaced over the years, much to the delight of fans of everything from Star Wars to Saturday Night Live. Each edition of the game has thousands of questions in a variety of categories, which have entertained families, friends and patrons at trivia nights and pubs for years.

The game reached an incredible height of success in the mid-1980s, when more than 20 million copies of the game were sold in North America. Trivial Pursuit was recently the centre of a legal battle after a Cape Breton, N.S., man insisted the game's concept was his idea. After hearing from more than 50 witnesses, not one of whom supported the man's claim, the case was dismissed in 2007. Haney is survived by his wife and three children. © Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette Obituary: Chris Haney - The Scotsman Obituary: Chris Haney 21:31 Thursday 03 June 2010 Co-inventor of board game Trivial Pursuit, which has sold over 100 million copies Born: 9 August (disputed), 1950, in Welland Ontario. Died: 31 May, 2010, in Toronto, aged 59. QUESTION: How did Chris Haney, an inventor of the board game Trivial Pursuit, think of himself? Answer: As a rock star.

"It's like we became rock stars," he told Maclean's magazine in 1993, repeating a comment he had made in several interviews. "People still shake in their boots when they meet us." And why not? Haney, a rumpled Canadian high school dropout, joined with fellow journeyman journalist Scott Abbott to create a phenomenon – a board game that tests a player's grasp of wickedly inconsequential trivia. In the 1980s, Trivial Pursuit was outselling Monopoly. By the time Haney died,more than 100 million copies of the game had been sold in as many as 26 countries and in at least 17 languages, with estimated sales of well over $1 billion. And Haney, who had battled through financial hardship in pursuit of his dream, wound up owning golf courses, vineyards and racehorses. Hasbro, which bought the intellectual rights to Trivial Pursuit for $80 million (55m) in 2008, confirmed Haney's death. The company did not give a cause, except to say that he had suffered from a long illness.

The original Trivial Pursuit, introduced in 1981, involved answering 6,000 trivia questions on 1,000 cards, coded by categories such as history and entertainment. (They have been updated and modified many times since, and many variations of the game have been introduced.) Original questions could be tough: "Who was Howdy Doody's twin brother?" (Double Doody.) Or easy: "What chemical is used to keep swimming pools clean?" (Chlorine.) Haney especially liked quirky questions: "What's the largest diamond in the world?" (A baseball diamond.) The game was a hit with Baby Boomers in particular and has always tended to play on their nostalgia. Indeed, Time magazine reported that the cast of The Big Chill, the 1983 film about a reunion of friends from the 1960s, loved to play Trivial Pursuit on the set. Christopher Haney was born in Welland, Ontario. (The exact date is uncertain, but references agree on his age, 59.) He dropped out of high school at 17 and later said he regretted it – that he should have dropped out at 12.

His father worked for a news agency, the Canadian Press, and got him a job there as a copy boy. He later took over its photo desks in Ottawa and Montreal, then moved to the Montreal Gazette as a picture editor. On the evening of 15 December, 1979, Haney and Abbott, who was then a sportswriter for the Canadian Press, were playing Scrabble. Haney wondered aloud whether the two of them could invent a game as good. Contrary to legend, they were neither in a tavern nor on their 18th round of beers. They were at Haney's home in Montreal and on their first beers when Haney suggested a game based on trivia, they told the Hamilton Spectator in 1993. By the time Haney was opening the refrigerator to fetch their second beers, they were already mentally designing the board. Their next step was to go to a Montreal toy fair and present themselves as a reporter-photographer team. They peppered game experts with questions and came away with what Haney called "$10,000 worth of information". They then brought in Haney's brother John, who in turn brought in a friend, a fellow hockey enthusiast.

But they needed more investors and turned to friends in their newsrooms. One problem, according to the Globe and Mail of Canada, was that people had heard they were "con artists". As an example, the newspaper pointed to a chain letter the men had started that proved profitable for the originators but not to those down the line. They nonetheless succeeded in raising $40,000 from 32 investors. Haney's mother was not among them, however: he had talked her out of investing for fear she would lose her money. On a trip to Spain, Haney worked 16-hour days writing questions, by his account, provoking some investors to suggest that they were paying for his vacation. An unemployed artist helped with the design. But things did not immediately work out: buyers at toy fairs in Montreal and New York were cool to the concept. Haney began to have panic attacks, he told the Globe and Mail. But after a manufacturer was found and the game was released in Canada, word-of-mouth support began to build. Then the game took off, racking up nearly $800m in sales in 1984.

An estimated one in five American households bought the game, with Selchow & Righter, the maker of Parcheesi and Scrabble, owning the US license at the height of the game's popularity in the mid-80s. Ownership then bounced from company to company, including Parker Brothers, until Hasbro bought the rights in 2008. Haney fought and won a 13-year legal battle against a man who said he had given him the idea for Trivial Pursuit when Haney picked him up hitchhiking. He won another suit against an author who claimed that Haney had taken questions from his books, something Haney readily acknowledged. The judge's reasoning: You can't steal trivia. Chris Haney: kingmaker | Toronto Star Canada Chris Haney: kingmaker Trivial Pursuit co-inventor Chris Haney knew the answer to life’s biggest question. He knew how to enjoy himself. Trivial Pursuit co-creator Chris Haney passed away on Monday at age 59. (THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO) By Katie DaubsStaff Reporter Wed., June 2, 2010 Chris Haney knew the answer to life’s biggest question.

He knew how to enjoy himself. The former Montreal Gazette photo editor had the means to do so after he transformed forgotten minutiae into the wildly popular board game Trivial Pursuit with fellow newsman Scott Abbott. “He used to say, ‘We’re not millionaires, we’re multi-millionaires,’ and he would laugh and slap his thigh,” said retired professor Jack MacLeod, an early investor. “I don’t think anyone enjoyed money more.” The father of three who was known for his big ideas died on Monday. He was 59. At the last Trivial Pursuit shareholders’ meeting, the usually brash Haney was more subdued. Article Continued Below “I asked him what he did for fun these days, and he said with a grim smirk that he didn’t have certain basic functions anymore, so he watched a lot of TV,” said Michael Wurstlin. Wurstlin asked what he’d been watching. Haney was stumped on the name of a bald comedian. “As I approached the door to another room, I heard him bellow across the bar ‘Don Rickles!’ I peeked back and smiled at him.

That was the last time I saw him.” In the ’80s, Trivial Pursuit flew off the shelves faster than Cabbage Patch dolls. The investors who bought shares over beers were able to pay off mortgages. Haney and his colleagues autographed shoulders, board games and breasts. “We were at a public appearance in South Carolina, and the lineup went on forever,” Abbott said. “He said to me, ‘Jesus Christ, we’re not the friggin’ Beatles.’ I said, ‘Don’t be too sure.’ ” GEOGRAPHY: Where was Trivial Pursuit invented? A kitchen table in Quebec, December 1979. The chain-smoking Haney was peeved he had paid $11 for a Scrabble board to prove his prowess over Abbott in a best-of-seven tournament. He figured there must be money in board games. He and Abbott came up with the idea in 45 minutes. Haney and his brother went to Spain to work on questions. “Writing the questions became an all-consuming endeavour. We couldn’t go to lunch without reading the label on the ketchup bottle,” Abbott said. Money was tight. .

Abbott and Haney offered share blocks to their friends for $1,000. HISTORY: When given the chance to invest in Trivial Pursuit, do you take it? “You gotta understand. Haney looked like a mad man with a Fu Manchu moustache,” said Terry Mosher, an editorial cartoonist at the Montreal Gazette. Mosher, who goes by the pen name Aislin, designed oddball posters for Trivial Pursuit in the early days. Haney gave him the choice to take a $1,000 payment or a block of five shares. “I was really tempted to take the shares but my first wife, knowing Haney’s reputation, kicked me under the table and mouthed, ‘Take the cash,’ ” Mosher said. Mosher said most people at the Gazette dismissed Haney’s idea, much to their regret. “I’m not ungrateful,” Mosher says. “It makes for a great story.” ENTERTAINMENT: Who was the only person at the Montreal Gazette to invest in Trivial Pursuit? Derrick Ramsey was an entertainment copy editor at the Gazette. He routinely drank with Haney and Abbott at a dingy tavern near the paper.

“I guess I felt bad for them,” he said. Ramsey gave Haney two cheques for $500, hoping to make $5,000. In 30 years, more than $1 million has trickled in. “It was a little bonus every year,” said Ramsey, who still works at the Gazette. ARTS & LITERATURE: Who did Haney approach to design the board game? Michael Wurstlin had just been laid off from a design job. Haney wanted a game with an adult look and found Wurstlin through a friend. “They picked this look that was a bit like After Eight mints,” Wurstlin said. Haney encouraged the 27-year-old to take shares instead of a payment. The struggling artist reluctantly agreed. “It catapulted me into the middle class,” said Wurstlin, who now runs his own ad agency. SPORTS & LEISURE: How many early investors were well-off? Aside from a few lawyers and accountants, nobody. “We were your average odds and sods,” said David Cobb, who was working freelance for CTV when he bought a share block.

Susan Ferrier MacKay was a waitress with $1,000 in credit card debt when she met the Haney brothers and Abbott. Impressed by their clever wit, she took a chance. “One day I had nothing, the next day it was sort of raining money,” she said.

Question: Chris Haney who died in June 2010 aged 59 was co-creator of which board game?
Answer: TRIVIAL PURSUIT